Sunday, 25 December 2011

Christmas Traditions

We didn't really have any so-called Christmas Tradition in my family, other than a small dinner on Christmas Eve and buying/making presents for each other, but there are some things I would find myself do anyway when Christmas is nearing. One of them is rereading my old copies of Prima magazines, especially the Christmas edition, these used to belong to my mum, from 1994-96, almost a decade old and you can see how battered and crumpled they are now from the many times I reread them. I would flip through the pages and look at the colorful pictures before I could even read and asked my parents what the pages are saying. Those are fond childhood memories and every time I read them now, it give me a warm and fuzzy feeling, gone are those carefree, happy days but I'm still able to relive the moments through these old magazines. I would never ever throw them away even when some of them have lost their covers or sport missing pages, they are like some sort of time tunnel. Here are some of the pages that I liked, and some are ads that I love:

Prima December 1994, December 1996 and October 1994
I didn't have many surviving copies, therefore I treasure those that I owned, these two are Christmas Editions I would peruse before Christmas, they may be outdated, but I still enjoy reading them. New ones just don't give the sort of fuzzy happy feelings like these.

Prima December 1994, page 54-55
 I actually tried using these tips to wrap presents once upon a time, but I couldn't be bothered anymore, laziness grow as we ages.


Prima December 1994, page 42-43
Absolutely love the pin curls on the left, so pretty. I love vintage stuff like that, the make up are pretty simple too. On the far right, there's an instructions teaching you how to cut bangs like a pro.

Prima December 1994 page 12-13
Lovely pictures, I wished we could have such perfect family portraits similar to those above. Everyone dressed up nicely and take pictures with the decorated house. This year is dismally bare, no Christmas tree or decorations set up, maybe after we moved. I can't imagine what will happen to the Christmas tree with 9 cats around (oh yes, we just took in #8 and #9, more on them in another post)

Prima December 1996 page 22-23
 The Prima team dressed these girls up in something different from what they're used to and their partners gave their opinions about their dates in the following pages. I love the gold lace shift dress and the long red gown, so pretty.

RSPCA and Scottish SPCA ad Prima December 1994, page 148-149
 Don't buy a Pet for Christmas and abandon them when the novelty ran dry, that is completely irresponsible. When you bring home a pet, you are responsible for him/her, if you don't trust yourself to do so, don't even get a pet the first place. And you shouldn't buy someone a pet as a gift unless they specifically requested one and can be trusted to take good care of them. A gift that the recipient don't like can be set aside or re-gifted, but a pet is much complicated than that. By the way, those tidbits on the next pages never failed to get my mouth watering: Kebabs, Filo parcels, honeyed bacon bread sticks, mozarella and basil toasts and Pastrami vol-au-vents. Yums.

Prima December 1996 page 78=79
Yummy recipes that can be easily created using Chicken Tonight sauces, as usual, I've never seen this product in the shelves of our local supermarkets. But they all look so yummy.

Prima December 1996 page 94-95
 I remember my mom made one of these for me using the patterns attached, I wore it to my Aunty's wedding dinner. It was has pale blue and gold roses on a pale cream background, I didn't like it then, but I do now. Wonder where it went?

Polly Pocket ad Prima December 1996
 I never had a Polly Pocket before, my little sister does, but hers is nothing as fancy as these. Do little girls these days still want Polly Pocket's? Maybe not, they probably prefer NDS or PSP.

Prima December 1996 page 38-39
 I like this article, the writer in this piece- Sarah Edghill went out to discover about prejudice about people who are bigger. First she went out as herself at size 12 where everyone from the cafe owner, clothing shop sales girls, hotel doorman and passersby treated her nicely or barely pay her any attention. Few days later, she went back to the same places, meeting the same people but she was wearing a padded body suit and makeup to look like a size 20 and she was able to see that those people treatment towards her has changed dramatically. Its a good article that lets people reexamine their perception about certain stereotypes. Please don't be mean to people just because of the way they look, its downright mean.

Persil Ad Prima December 1996
 I love this ad, so nice and colorful. Each box of Persil can wash up to 12 loads of laundry, more value for your money.

Prima December 1996 page 66-67
Truly scrumptious looking desserts made from Lyle's Black Treacle. Never had the chance to try any of these before. Can we get Black Treacle in Asia?

Sea Fish Ad Prima December 1996
Doesn't that pizza looks so yummy? My mouth waters every time I see this ad, I want pizza!

Quorn Ad Prima October 1994
Enjoy pasta with a lot less guilt, just use Quorn as it is healthy and contains more dietary fibre. A recipe is included. I love looking at pictures of food, these sort of ads made me stare at the pages longer.

These sort of advertisements has never been seen anymore, so Old Skool but I love them all. There are more advertisements that are unique and different from those we normally seen in recent years, maybe I'll feature them again sometimes.

Saturday, 24 December 2011

Christmas Eve

Tonight is Christmas Eve, I'm going to be having a small dinner with my parents and siblings. Ordered a roasted lamb leg from Tong Hing and some roasted potatoes with gravy, just got back from picking it up at the store. Both dishes smells wonderful, I can't wait for tonight. Instead of the usual sparkling apple or grape juice, this year we're doing something different: we bought Cranberry juice and Soda Water, since I though the juice is a bit too sweet, it might be a good thing to dilute it a bit with the soda water, hope it works. Here's a sneak peak of what will be going on for tonight:

Roasted Leg of Lamb from Tong Hing

Roasted potatoes

Western Family Cranberry Juice Cocktail

Schweppes Soda Water

Do you have anything nice planned for Christmas Eve and Christmas? We planned to sleep in late, laze around reading in bed, get up and open up presents and then head out for breakfast, dim sum I hoped. No idea what we'll be doing the rest of the day though, but I'm sure we'll be able to find something fun to do. Happy Christmas Eve to all those who are reading.

Friday, 23 December 2011

I'm back again.

Hey people, I'm back again, hope you haven't forgotten me. Just finished reformatting my laptop, quite a lot of problems with it that's why it took them so long. There's this pesky virus that plays a game of lets-hide-the-files so I got the shock of my life when my External Hard Drive where I backup all my files appeared blank right after my laptop was reformatted, luckily the experts were able to put the dreaded virus in its place, other than that there are also some hardisk and memory space issues, but so far its fine for now. I hope all is well again so I can get back to updating regularly. I should hate it very much if I am to go on another hiatus again, I really don't like to let you all down.

There is so much to catch up, I wonder how Molly from Still Alive to Eat More Cakes is faring, about her prom night and about the prom dress she picked out. Speaking of clothes, what new styles was Mochacinnoland from There is No Secret Here, is sporting. Or what sort of mischief  Small Kucing and Mamarazzi are up to, maybe check to see what new destinations Meitzeu from Sketches of Life, Diane Teo from Travel and Living Journal of DT, and Black Swan from Luxury Heaven have been visiting again, not to mention the hip and happenings of Sabah with Hayden Chan... Last but not least, I ought to hop over to Sonia's Nasi Lemak Lover for some new recipes to try out. I do miss you all.

I'll do a quick dash for tonight as I had a long day today. I'm going to leave you with this cute video while anticipating the arrival of Christmas in a few days. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do. Pssst... you must click on the boxes in the video and let these hilarious hedgehogs bring more joy to the seasons celebration. Happy Christmas to you all in advance <3




Sunday, 4 December 2011

Favorite Song Of The Moment

Jess Lee Jia Wei 李佳薇, is a Malaysian singer from Seremban. Her singing career kickstarts when she won the competition Superstar Avenue season 7 超級星光大道7 in Taiwan by impressing the judges and audience with her powerful vocals.This is my favorite song of hers- Suffering. Let's hope she'll continue to make all Malaysians proud. 



煎熬

早知道 你只是飛鳥
擁抱後 手中只剩下 羽毛
當初你又何必浪費
那麼多咖啡和玫瑰 來打擾

我想要 安靜的思考
天平上 讓愛恨不再 動搖
一想你就平衡不了
我關燈還是關不掉 這風暴

心一跳 愛就開始煎熬
每一分 每一秒
火在燒 燒成灰有多好
叫思念 不要吵
我相信我已經快要 快要把你忘掉
跟寂寞 再和好

得不到 也不要乞討
怎麼做 不需要別人 轉告
在陷得太深的海底
我也只剩下我自己 能依靠

我相信我已經快要 是真的我快要
快要可以微笑
去面對 下一個 擁抱

Pizza Night

After the cleaning, chopping, frying up ingredients, its time to assemble our Pizza. We had so much fun mixing together the different ingredients. It's really satisfying to devour it as well, at first we think it won't be enough to have one tortilla per person, so we're set on making two each, but it's surprisingly very filling. Must be all the toppings. We'll definitely do it again and experiment with different ingredients. Can't wait to get a new oven when we move house so we can make a pizza with proper crust, or we could even use the barbecue grill?

What oven are you using? Do you have any recommendations or advice on what we should be looking for? Any suggestions are appreciated since we're noobs when it comes to getting a good oven.
our assembly station
Heat the tortilla and spread tomato paste on it

Heap all the toppings you like on top

Scatter mozzarella cheese and wait for it to melt a bit

Different combinations of different toppings

The possibilities are endless